9 Essential Creative Best Practices for Lead Generation Advertisers

If you’re looking to generate leads for you insurance, education or financial services company, you need good creative for your ads. Not only will finely-crafted image and copy combinations help you stand out from the noise on social media, but it will also communicate the value of your brand to audiences, increasing the likelihood that they will take next steps towards driving revenue for your business. Because Facebook now offers lead ads that allow audiences to take immediate action, following these creative best practices to influence audiences to act is more important than ever.

Note: The brands featured herein are meant to serve as compelling examples, and are not Nanigans customers unless expressly noted.

1. Use Strong, Motivational Language

The copy in your ad should grab users’ attention and make it easy for them to understand what your business in all about. Be sure to keep your copy short and precise so readers don’t lose interest.

Liberty Mutual makes it crystal clear in this Twitter ad that purchasing their car insurance means savings. Language like “start saving now” gives the message an immediate and motivating tone that moves viewers to click on the ad and learn more about the money-saving benefits of Liberty Mutual’s insurance plans.

2. Appeal To Your Targeted Audience

Social ads make it easy to target a wide range of demographics. However, that doesn’t mean one ad will be relevant to every type of audience. Tailor your ads to address the unique interests and concerns of each group your target.

Earnest understands that not every audience it wants to reach will have the same needs. The financial company wisely tailors different Facebook ads to fit the interests of each demographic it is advertising too. The ad on the left aims to appeal to college students looking to pay off student loans, while the ad on the right promotes the same service to parents who hope to use those savings to benefit their children.

3. Add Color To Your Campaigns

Targeting just the right audience at just the right time doesn’t matter is your ads don’t stand out on desktop and mobile newsfeeds. Use bright shades or high-contrast hues to make your message pop.

Kaplan Test Prep’s Instagram video ad stands out because of its use of color. The high-contrast, flat design of the animation means that it will be easily seen and highly visible on mobile devices. Additionally, the ad’s heavy use of dark purple calls back to Kaplan’s logo colors, which keeps the entire ad on-brand.

4. Guide Prospects Through The User Experience

Providing examples of people using and benefiting from your product or service will make it clear to viewers exactly what your business does and why they should share their contact information with you.

Chime gives users a preview of its money management app by making it the focus of this Instagram Link ad. By showcasing the user interface and capturing the function of the app in one snapshot, Chime makes its value clear and understandable, increasing the likelihood that audiences will click through the ad to sign up or learn more.

5. Choose A Clear Call-To-Action

Try reinforcing your ad’s CTA button with overlay text. Or, experiment with visuals that draw viewers’ eyes towards the button so they can easily take the next step.

The Freecreditreport.com’s purpose is clear even beyond its name. Every aspect of this Facebook link ad is tailored to encourage viewers to check their credit scores to free. This makes it immediately clear to viewers the benefits and next steps they should take after seeing Freecreditreport.com’s ad.

6. Don’t Forget To Name-Drop

Incorporating your company’s name or logo into ads can help build greater brand awareness and recall. Just make sure to take a subtle approach; you want to avoid replacing the CTA as the focal point.

Citibank keeps its brand continually present in this Instagram Link ad. Aside from subtly featuring its credit card in the corner of the ad, the people in the ad also wear the same colors as the Citibank card, making sure it’s in the forefront of the ad without being too obtrusive to the viewers.

7. Align Your Landing Page With Your Ad

Make sure the users are taken to a landing page that relates back to your ad. For example, if your ad mentions a free eBook download, your landing page should focus solely on that eBook and the submission form to receive it. Staying on-topics will cut down on drop-off because users will be able to perform the action that inspired them to click in your ad in the first place.

Launch Academy dedicates an entire Facebook link ad to solely promoting its coding bootcamp. Because the ad is single-focused, the landing page users see after clicking on the ad also dedicated to Launch Academy’s bootcamp. The landing page continues design elements that are present in the ad, such as a prominent bar in Launch Academy’s signature pink. The landing page also prominently features a CTA focused on Launch Academy’s primary goal: to get viewers to apply for the program.

8. Tell A “Before And After” Story

Showcasing different stages of the user experience will illustrate the positive impacts of your product or service. This will make the value of your company clear to audiences, even if they fail to read the ad copy.

Qapital clearly explains how its money tracking app can benefit users by showing one use case in this Instagram video ad. Viewers can see a visual example of how the app monitors savings, concluding with a shot from within the app once that savings goal is reached. This communicates the benefits of the app while also giving audiences of preview of Qapital’s user experience.

9. Be Humorous

Putting an entertaining spin on your advertising can be a highly effective method of attracting attention and engaging prospects. Since offerings like insurance or financial services are often difficult to visualize, it’s especially important for lead generation advertisers to get creative.

Bank of America doesn’t take an obvious approach when it comes to advertising its mobile banking app. Instead, it uses this off-beat Twitter ad to promote the app with a humorous llama picture and plenty of llama-related puns and jokes. This approach doesn’t just make the ad more entertaining; it also makes Bank of America more memorable for audiences and creates a fun experience that makes it more appealing for audiences to click through the ad to learn more.

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